Movies: Spielberg series and 'Metropolis'

"Metropolis" is as vital and topical and compelling today as on the day it opened in 1927. With the inclusion of footage long thought to be lost, it has been restored to near-original condition. Fritz Lang's dark masterpiece is a stylized vision of life in the year 2026, a struggle between intellect, lust, greed, anger and love. It is an uncanny forecast of the Third Reich, with its violent mobs, regiments of workers marching in lockstep and its furnaces of industry fueled on human flesh. If you love "Dr. Strangelove" or "Blade Runner," "Modern Times," "Frankenstein" or "Star Wars," you've been touched by " Metropolis."

Every weekend in June, the Trylon is paying tribute to one of American cinema's greatest treasures -- none other than Steven Spielberg. Perhaps you've seen his work? While the series title is accurate -- with "Jaws," Spielberg did, in effect, create what we now know as the summer movie season -- people tend to forget just how well acted, written and directed his blockbusters are. The pretty-much-perfect "Raiders of the Lost Ark" kicks off the series this weekend (7 & 9:10 p.m. Fri.-Sat., 4:40 & 7 p.m. Sun.). After "Jaws" (June 11-13) comes the magical, nice-aliens invasion movie "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" (June 18-20). Ending the run June 25-27 is "Jurassic Park," which still drops jaws with its groundbreaking digital effects. The four older Spielberg titles in this series will remind you how the director captures your imagination with spectacle, while grounding it all in likable, three-dimensional characters. Too few blockbuster directors can make that claim.